Today I’m casting my steely glare towards the early months of 2012 in which we see ‘Band of Skulls’ releasing their much anticipated second album ‘Sweet Sour’.

Available on February 20th and eagerly anticipated, it will launch them into the upper echelons of the rock world.

Evidence so far points to the band adding another layer of polish to their impressive studio sound and all I’m waiting for to hear if they’ve retained their knack for songs filled with quality pop hooks.

As a free taster you can sign up to their mailing list at www.bandofskulls.com and get ‘Devil’s Rug’ an alternative version the single ‘The Devil Takes Care of His Own’.

Another free offering to look out for is ‘Nature Regulate’ a track from Birdpen’s second album.

Its a wonderful soundscape and is already in the playlist at Voice FM.

You’ll be able to download it from www.birdpen.com in January and it will be accompanied by a cool, artistic animated video.

Also in January Dlugokecki will be studio bound to add the finishing touches to their next album ‘Putting the Tracks in Front of the Train’.

It should be a cracker of an album, released on 12th March and you can pre-order from www.dlugokecki.net

Add to that the début début album from LST and already 2012 is looking like the year Southampton will be sticking its head above pops parapet and waving a flag of quality.

When there isn’t a specific genre you invent one, for example ‘cool/dark’ is how I’m summing up Robin Foster’s latest album.

Courtesy of the Southampton four-piece ‘Wolfe‘ a new genre “ChillWave” has been brought to my attention.

A term coined by blogger ‘Carles‘ which became ‘official’ when iTunes gave it a category and John Pareles in the New York Times summed it up as “recession-era music: low-budget and danceable.”

Wolfe dropped it into a conversation about professional acts they’ve recently supported.

Musicians such as ‘Tropics’ who headlined the club Pop in May: “Musically it worked really well and there was a mutual admiration between bands. It was great to support an up and coming band and one which is part of ‘chillwave’.”

Vocalist Gav Brook continued. “It led to a headline slot a few months later at the ‘Wednesday Night Live’ night at Pop which is a brilliant night for a more eclectic, electronic and left-field artists.”

Other acts they cite are ‘Suicide Party’ and ‘Bridpen’ because of… “the vibe that they create at gigs.”

Fronted by singer/bassist Laura Wolfe, with Paulus Fielder, Stu Rogers and Gav they created a brilliant ambiance, and very well balanced sound, when they supported ‘Maths and the Moon’ at Guava Bar in October.

Their EP “Cries” is available as a free download on Soundcloud and they’ll blow your house down.

First published in the Southern Daily Echo, Friday 11th Nov, 2011

Wolfe “Cries” by WOLFE

Its also the title of the second album from Robin Foster, a British musician living in France. [Cover photo by Benoit Pelletier]

You might not recognise his name but his music could have underscored your television pleasure as tracks from his debut “Life Is Elsewhere” have been used by Hugo Boss, Barclay’s and the US show ‘One Tree Hill’.

Robin’s latest mix of cool/dark instrumentals and songs features the south’s Dave Pen the singer from Birdpen and Archive.

Where do we go from here?

And as you’d expect Dave feels the same: “I liked his instrumentations and it felt natural to write lyrics to his music. Also the fact he was an Englishman working in France had a similarity with the musical projects I am involved in and we also connected as people which made working on these songs enjoyable and slightly mad.”

The most important aspect for Robin was the enthusiasm Mr Pen brought to the project: “I love Dave’s voice, he throws himself into it, he really brings a whole new dimension to the songs, it stops you in your tracks.”

The songs Dave has written lyrics for, and also poured his soul crushed vocals onto, are: “A collapsing light”, “Concrete Skies”, “Forgiveness”, “Black Mountain” and the almost
pop “Wait for her”.

I asked Dave if album’s title alluded to a global or inner perspective: “Its a more personal statement. The songs are about guilt, loss, hope and love, not about the state of the economy and the state of our beloved planet earth. That’s in another project you will hear about soon !!”

And many Birdpen fans around Europe are busting for news about that almost album finished!

However Robin takes us a little deeper into the background of the title: “It is also a personal statement regarding two very close friends who died while I was making the album, sparking that eternal question of “what’s next?”… It has many connotations really, it’s also a natural follow on from the first album’s title “Life Is Elsewhere”. This is the next step so to speak, though it’s not just a negative question, it’s also a hopeful one, the whole album has the recurring theme of a light in the dark. ”

For the record I think its a great listen. There is a fine balance between Robin’s instrumentals and the songs he and Dave have produced: they are like pauses during an evening’s conversation. And the answer to the album’s question? Onwards and upwards for both artists.

http://www.robinfoster.fr

Robin Foster’s upcoming live concert will feature special guest singers Dave Pen (Archive & BirdPen) et Ndidi O at the Transmusicales de Rennes, a major French music festival, Friday 2nd December.

Jean-Louis Brossard, organisateur du festival, dévoile son artiste «Coup de coeur», Robin Foster pour ces 33ème Rencontres des Transmusicales de Rennes, au Parc Expo Hall 4, vendredi 2 Décembre à 22h00.

You can visit the festival’s website : www.lestrans.com

However its all good news and we’ll start with a wedding.

Birdpen front man Dave Pen (right) married his sweetheart Nicola last Friday and a joyous occasion it was.

His best man was Mike Bird the “other half” of that fine Southampton duo.

At the reception I was reliably informed that if the ceremony had been held in France, Dave’s European fans would have been scaling the walls.

Pour quoi?

Dave is also in Archive, an avant-garde British collective, who on Sunday are headlining the last night of “Rock en Seine” in Paris.

With ‘Foo Fighters’ topping the bill on Friday and ‘Arctic Monkeys’ Saturday, you can appreciate the heights Archive have reached.

Side of stage will be Mike Bird. He’s also Archive’s guitar and keyboard tech and, as he points out, “It’s a billing the band will undoubtedly feel the pressure to step up to. The fact they are playing with a 32 piece orchestra will make the show quite a spectacle!”

He’ tech’d from Fleet Foxes to Sophie Ellis-Bextor which means: “I am always surrounded by music and meeting like minded people.”

These experiences are rubbing off on Birdpen and naturally opening bigger doors on the continent.

With a second album written and waiting to be recorded all they need is a British backer to line their nest.

First published in the Southern Daily Echo, 26th August 2011

He first came to my attention in the duo Birdpen, an act that is dark and inventive in the studio while on stage they stand out as totally professional unit, that produces a sound so large it fills every inch of available space in the venue.

Occasionally Dave would mention he was in a collective called ‘Archive‘ who were doing quite well in Europe. As my brief at the time focused on the south coast it took a while to investigate this strand of his career, especially as the albums were just available on the continent.

It was only when I bought Bridpen’s debut album from Amazon France did I realise how modest Dave had been as, on the cover, was a sticker proclaiming ‘On, Off, Safety, Danger’ featured ‘Dave Pen from Archive’

This success abroad was on the back of Archive’s albums ‘Lights’ & ‘Live at the Zenith’ just before Archive’s 2009 release ‘Controlling Crowds parts I-IV’ which is a double album of rare beauty.

Ironically it’s also the last recording they made under their deal with Warners who, for some inexplicable reason, have dropped the band just at the wrong time. It’s a bit like the Beatles being ditched after Sgt. Peppers.

Controlling Crowds will feature in later editions of ‘Xan Phillips presents…‘, however for this episode we concentrate on Birdpen’s debut album ‘On, Off, Safety, Danger’ and Archive’s ‘Live at the Zenith’ which the French Rolling Stone magazine stated was one of the best live recordings around.

We’ve also got more music from the UK’s south coast including our hottest export to Europe and America: Band of Skulls. Along with them you can investigate Betika, Boe Weaver, The Shanklin Freak Show, Big Num, Scarlett Soho and The Moulettes.

Xan Phillips presents is brought to you by Playdio.com and is currently available on Spotify.

Archive have eight albums under their belt and a very strong following in Europe.

Their most recent double album ‘Controlling Crowds’ fulfilled their contract with Warners and instead of re-signing with a major label chose to go it alone.

To look after the global distribution of their back catalogue AWAL (Artists Without a Label) have been given that task.

However, to raise funds for future projects, they’ve turned to an exciting musician led company called PledgeMusic.com.

The pledge system involves fans buying the CD or DVD in advance through incentives, such as signed merchandise, being the band photographer for the day, or just having a signed set list.

On 19th July Archive asked their fans to help raise funds to record a live DVD at a 5000 seat amphitheatre in Athens: ten days later they’ve achieved their target!

“The response has been over whelming,” Dave Pen told me, “I personally didn’t think it would go so quickly so am very happy it has done.”

Numbers of fans is the important part of this equation.

When you consider Archive have over 60,000 ardent followers on Facebook you can appreciate that raising money this way is blindingly obvious.

So pledging might not suit bands at the start of their career but it’s a massive incentive for looking after your fan base and encouraging its growth.

First published in the Southern Daily Echo on 30th July 2010

Even though it’s untitled, and the tracks are yet to be decided, the rough mixes I was lucky enough to hear sound fantastic.

They’ve been putting samples on www.birdpen.com and out of the five you might’ve heard ‘Sorrow’ is the one that has the potential to break the band globaly.

These recordings deliver a natural progression from their debut ‘On/Off/Safety/Danger’ presenting the same amount of depth but with cultured experimentation.

The two albums are likely to be bridged by the track “Only The Names Change” which is classic Birdpen: a giant, tension filled riff lurking beneath a melodic sub-plot of a lyric.

It’s already a firm favourite with Birdpen fans across Europe and they are desperate for an immediate release.

So if you are curios check out this French TV show “One Shot Not” (Arte) and you’ll see a great live performance from March 2010.

“Only The Names Change” might come out as an EP later in the year and for album2 we’ll have to wait until 2011.

Another reason for admiring this Southampton duo is their unassuming nature.

When he’s not in the studio Mike Bird can be found guitar tech’ing on some of the hippest tours around.

While Dave Pen can be found singing for Archive, a European collective that has released seven albums and attracted many thousands of fans on Facebook.

Archive have recently announced something really cool and we’ll talk about that next week.

One day you hear an idea; the next you almost have an album!

And it was 23^rd June that Julian Aplin from ‘Angry Badger Records‘ suggested we put together a compilation album.

Julian had become a regular at the Showcase UK nights in the Soul Cellar and decided to put on a few gigs at the venue  to showcase some of his own acts. He asked me to perform a DJ set between the bands following that sent an email with the immortal words: “How do you fancy a Showcase UK/Angry Badger compilation CD?”

There was no need for persuading as I had been thinking for the past two years we needed a follow-up to the previous South Coast collection “The Coming of The Railways” which introduced me to Birdpen and many others.

I would have loved Birdpen to have been on this collection but as they are now signed to a French label this excellent trio are beyond our reach. However we both know many great acts and could easily find 15 for a compilation which we’ve called ‘Showcase Sett’.

Where Julian and I agreed immediately was that it had to be quality through and through, at a very reasonable price.

Showcase Sett by Peter Jaques

So we enlisted the wonderful painter and graphic designer Peter Jaques to create the cover (left). For the design and layout of the inner sleeves Oliver Taylor was recommended by the Soul Cellar.

The music had to have a flow, and each song sound it’s best, so we visited Peter J Croissant at Grand Master Audio to master our first pick of the South Coast’s talent.

We’re expecting this to be the first of many. This area is rich in quality musicians and, as I have been saying in the Daily Echo, there is a ’scene’ on the South Coast and scene is quality song writing.

And here we are, almost a month later and we are sending the elements to be turned into ‘Showcase Sett – Propeller’, a limited edition album (400 commercial copies) which is already receiving pre-orders.

You can see the full track listing and place your order at Iconic Culture. It is released August 1^st 2009 priced £4.99 online and £5 in the flesh.

Order: Showcase Sett – Propeller